From: Paul van Delst <Paul.vanDelst@...>
Date: 2006-08-04T04:55:12+09:00
Subject: Re: I’m having a hard time learning ruby.

Nate Imaqaguy wrote:
> For starters, just do you know where I’m coming from: I have little to 
> no programming experience, except for some C and VB classes I took 6 
> years ago, which I did fine in.
> 
> My biggest hurdle getting started with ruby is finding which 
> methods/classes/files to call upon for whatever the heck I’m trying to 
> accomplish.
> 
> I’m use to being able to perform a search, like in MSDN Library, using 
> key words of something I’m trying to perform.  Then research results 
> from there, and get pointed in the right direction (with explanations on 
> what the feature does, and examples, etc).
> 
> The editors also helped with showing the available methods, as I wrote 
> the code.
> 
> So, with ruby, I’m using the SciTE editor (on WinXP), which doesn’t give 
> method options as you go.  Yeah, I know they are kinda like training 
> wheels, but they help when you’re starting out.
> 
> And I can’t really find any close equivalent to using something like an 
> MSDN Library.  The best thing someone has pointed me to so far is 
> http://www.ruby-doc.org/.  Which is cool and all, but it’s not really 
> “searchable”—you kind of have to know what file/class/method to look up 
> in the first place.  And even if I find what I think I’m looking for, 
> the documentation is confusing to me.  Sometimes there isn’t the 
> slightest word as to what something does.

Oh man, you have just described my recent experiences to a T. Although it's not 
searchable, the on-line version of the Programming Ruby "pickaxe" book,
   http://www.rubycentral.com/book
does do a pretty good job of listing just about everything built in on one page:
   http://www.rubycentral.com/book/builtins.html

After reading the paper version of the Pickaxe book, I bought a PDF version (only 10 
bucks) of the Pickaxe (see http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com) and keep it open on my 
desktop - along with the builtin library page above, and the Ruby-doc.org page you 
mentioned. I'm still in the hunting and gathering stage of ruby coding, but having those 
three resources available -- along with Google -- as I'm editing ruby code has been 
invaluable. In addition there are quite a number of webpages out there containing teaching 
examples and code snippets.

Oh, and the Ruby Cookbook is a must have too (although it's a hefty beast at 900-odd 
pages...and it doesn't look like it will be released as a PDF book anytime soon.)

> Someone told me about “.methods”, but that only works if you’re in an 
> irb session, which I find painful to use because I have to type all my 
> code in, line by line.  I can’t even figure out how to paste each line 
> of the code I already have.  Inevitably I fat finger something and get 
> mad.

I hear ya. On my Mac laptop, I haven't figured out how to get command line recall+traverse 
(up/down,left/right arrows) yet in irb. Drives me nuts. But you can play around within a 
regular source file rather than use irb directly. Sometimes I just play around at the end 
of a source file, e.g.

-------- in file fruit.rb ---------
#!/usr/bin/env ruby
class Fruit
   def initialize
     @bananas=0
   end
   def pick
     @bananas += 1
   end
   def eat
     @bananas -= 1
   end
   def howmany?
     @bananas
   end
end

# Muck around test code for above classes follows.....
fruit=Fruit.new
puts "Picking some fruit...."
(1..10).each {|i| fruit.pick}
puts "Eating some fruit...."
fruit.eat
puts "I have #{fruit.howmany?} piece(s) of fruit left."
---------------------------------

And then simply do

$ ruby -w fruit.rb

on the command line or, in irb, use "require"

irb(main):001:0> require 'fruit'
Picking some fruit....
Eating some fruit....
I have 9 piece(s) of fruit left.
=> true

to see if the stuff after the "actual" code (e.g. classes, modules, whatnot) does what I 
think it does. If not, I modify, save, and re-run.


Extremely low-tech .... but I'm having a ball. :o)

cheers,

paulv


-- 
Paul van Delst             Ride lots.
CIMSS @ NOAA/NCEP/EMC               Eddy Merckx
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